Minutes for July 9

Discussed what needs to be included in order to get an “A” on the essays

Got into groups and discussed the questions for “Life is Beautiful”

Then we discussed “Life is Beautiful” with the class

For question #1, group 1 said the movie was humorous when the car was out of control and Guido was waving the townspeople out of the way…they thought he was giving the Hail Hitler salute. Historical references were the children’s names (Adolf and Benito, as in Hitler and Mussolini), and the uncle’s horse’s name-Robinhood-Guido rode into the hotel to rescue Dora, like the story when Robinhood saves Maid Marion.
Group 2 stated that a historical reference was the entire concentration camp, the horse, and that the first ½ of the film had a fairy tale structure.
Group 3 said that the mention of Mr. Bidet in the uncle’s house was a historical reference, as was the mention of Petrarch, who wrote love sonnets (this is interesting because Guido’s friend is a poet), and the mention of Geribaldi sleeping in the uncle’s house…he was an Italian explorer and probably didn’t have time to stop by, much less sleep. When Guido was telling Joshua why there was a sign on a store that said ‘No dogs or Jews’ he said he was going to put a sign on his store that said ‘No spiders or Visigoths.’ Visigoths were Germans who settled in Italy, and if you picture a spider’s legs, it closely resembles a swastika.
Group 4 said that were many Biblical references (Mary throw down the key…), and when Guido did the Chaplin hat trick with his cane, and his superior race speech at the school were other historical references.

For question #2, group 4 said we laugh because we know the joke as viewers but the character isn’t aware of it (as with Dora not knowing the ‘Mary throw down the key’ trick—superior distance.
Group 1 said names make us laugh, such as Adolf and Benito
Group 3 said we have sympathy for the characters
Group 2 said overdramatization of situations (Dora’s beesting and Guido sucking the poison out) is an example of slapstick humor

For question #3, the differences between the two halves of ‘Life is Beautiful’ were the colors—the first half is colorful and the second half is more or less gray, the humor breaks down in the second half—Guido’s laughter comes close to tears, the lighting is different in the two parts, and lastly it turns from a love story into a survival story.

‘Life is Beautiful’ is an expression of good through evil like a dandelion pushing through cement

it is one of the first movies to use the Holocaust as a comedy and a love story, which is good

Some of the characters disappeared once they were in the camp, it was just Guido and Joshua, thus the issue of the Holocaust disappeared.

However, it never made light of the Holocaust itself.

Then we compared older films that dealt with the Holocaust to more recent ones, and how they began to show more and more of the reality of the whole ordeal: ‘Rome Open City’ by Rossollini was the the 1^st of Italian Realism to document reality through fiction film; ‘The Garden of Fitzi Contini’s’ was a Vittoria DeSica film about a wealthy Jewish Italian family that are split up and sent to camps; ‘Seven Beauties’ by Lena Wertmueller shows more cultural historical information in 2 min of a clip we viewed, which were bodies piled up in sequence to a Wagner song; and ‘The Night of Shooting Stars’ by the Taviani Bros., showing Italians as part of fascists, and the resistance fighters resisting Italians, changing their names.